Los Angeles metal punks Zig Zags share new music video for »Deadbeat At Dawn«; new full-length album out May 30th via RidingEasy Records!
Los Angeles, California based metal punks Zig Zags have released a music video for the title track of their fifth full-length album »Deadbeat At Dawn«, due out on May 30th, 2025 via RidingEasy Records.
Directed by Jim Van Bebber.
Tracklist:
01. Not Of This World
02. Altered States
03. Deadbeat At Dawn
04. At War With Hell
05. Take Me To Your Leader
06. Rats In Love
07. Above The Law
08. Get Loud
09. Metal To Metal
10. Say It To My Face
Courtesy of RidingEasy Records:
Zig Zags have been an L.A. institution for over a decade, never veering from their hard-riffin punk/metal mission statement. They’ve gigged all over the globe with underground luminaries such Mike Watt, Neurosis, Pig Destroyer, Oh Sees and Feral Ohms and recorded collaborations with icons like Iggy Pop. Zig Zags’ founding member, guitarist/singer Jed Maheu explains of the band’s core inspiration, “Zig Zags is metal and punk music written for my 13-year old self. If I wanted us to sound like something else, I would just do a different band.” This unyielding dedication to pure, driving rock n’ roll goes back to 2010, when Maheu, who was reared on both hardcore and ’80s thrash, started writing tracks inspired by his obsession with both genres. The band’s first slab of vinyl, the appropriately named »Monster Wizard« 45 came out soon after Tubesteak Tuesday Records. This was quickly followed by more singles on Mexican Summer and Light In The Attic, the latter teaming Zig Zags up with none other than Iggy Pop to blow out a Betty Davis cover. Their first self-titled LP dropped in 2012 on In The Red Records, produced by Ty Segall, who coaxed out their lean, mean, and lo-fi metalloid attack. The Zig Zags’ second full platter, »Running Out of Red was released on the Castle Face imprint in 2016, and since 2019 they’ve been with RidingEasy Records, who unleashed »They’ll Never Take Us Alive«, featuring their anthem of a single, »Punk Fucking Metal«. By this time, Maheu had enlisted Sean Hoffman on bass and Jeff Murray, (formerly of The Shrine) on drums, to release a hard and heavy rework of 10 years worth of Zig Zag’s classics, entitled, »Strange Masters Vol. 1«, in 2024.
Photo by Zache Davis
Now the power trio is set to release their fifth incendiary full-length LP, »Deadbeat At Dawn«, named in honor of the beloved B-movie, a no-budget action revenge flick set in the mean streets of suburban Ohio. Cult cinema is an enduring Zig Zags inspiration, with the band frequently calling out exploitation films in their lyrics, odes to teen-delinquent classics like »Over The Edge« and dystopian sci-fi such as, »Terminator« and »Total Recall«. The new album sticks to this obsession with the cultural underground, riffing on everything from demonic minions to apocalyptic visions and alien attacks. The opening track »Not of This World« is described by Maheu as, “a fighting-back-against-the-aliens song”. The propulsive heavy jammer »At War With Hell« fights the devils on their own satanic turf. The thrash power anthem, »Take Me To Your Leader«, is – as Maheu explains, “about how we’re always talking about the environment and going to Mars, then some aliens show up here and say, ‘Yo, your planet is way better than where we came from, so we’re gonna fuck you up and take it!’.” This new album is undeniably Zig Zags’ at their most epic and enormous in both the performance and the production. “We definitely wanted a bigger overall sound with heavier guitars,” Maheu explains of the new record, “still very 80’s, but clearer. Our influences were Metallica’s »Garage Days« as Judas Priest…really heavy but not overly distorted.”
The result is the most focused, intense, and catchy Zig Zags album yet, with the timing perfect for their distinctly melodic and maniacal call to arms. Finalizing recording and mixing just as the catastrophic fires hit their hometown in L.A., »Deadbeat At Dawn« is the perfect soundtrack for a city rising up from the ashes of destruction. “I feel lucky that we got to put out this record when we did,” Maheu said, “It’s heavy and gnarly and kind of fucked up, but it’s also a lot of fun – which is how we feel about Los Angeles.”
Performed by Zig Zags.
Produced and engineered by Michael Parnin at Blacksound.
Mastered by Nick Townsend.
Pre-order »Deadbeat At Dawn« here:
https://www.ridingeasyrecs.com
https://zigzags.bandcamp.com/album/deadbeat-at-dawn
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well